The flash floods that swept through Kerr County, Texas, are a cautionary tale about the critical moments when a community’s safety hangs in the balance. It was the early morning of July 4th, a time when most were asleep, when the National Weather Service saw the brewing storm.
A critical piece of information here is that there were two workable public warning systems in the area of South Texas on July 4th.
IPAWS (Integrated Public Alert & Warning System)
The Integrated Public Alert & Warning System (IPAWS) is a national system managed by FEMA that allows authorised public safety officials at the federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial levels to send out emergency alerts to the public. When activated, it broadcasts emergency alerts to every mobile phone in a designated area, providing very broad reach. It’s a single, unified platform that distributes alerts across multiple communication pathways, ensuring that critical information reaches as many people as possible, as long as they have mobile phones and cellular service.
The Local System: CodeRED
The CodeRED system is a real-time emergency notification service used in Kerr County since 2009. It’s designed to provide rapid and accurate alerts for situations like severe weather and flooding, using pre-recorded messages delivered via phone calls, texts, and emails to residents who have signed up. It also has the ability to use IPAWS to send alerts to all phones in a geographical area, regardless of whether they are enrolled.
In the context of the Kerr County floods, the system was expected to be a key tool for warning residents and visitors in real time. A volunteer firefighter requested a mass notification be sent as early as 4:22 a.m. to tell people to move to higher ground, but the dispatcher needed a supervisor’s authorisation to issue the alert.
In the DNA of Disaster terminology, this is called a veto node: an interruption of the flow of vital information about the environment to the people at risk of a catastrophe. Veto nodes can also be interruptions in the flow of information to cognitive control. In this case, information about the environment (rising waters in a flood plain) needed to be transmitted from cognitive control (The National Weather Service) to local Kerr County officials (The Emergency Management Coordinator) and trigger an alarm. This alarm signal would somehow need to reach the people at risk (campers who did not have their smartphones or cellular service).
The flow of information:
Environmental monitoring (National Weather Service) detects what is happening in the environment. The signal then travels to the local officials (Emergency Management Coordinator) through a dispatcher, who must get management permission (another veto node built into the system) and then activate the IPAWS and CodeRED systems for their area.
While the CodeRED system is praised as effective when used with other warning systems, its performance during the flood was criticised for being inconsistent and delayed. Residents reported not receiving their first alerts until after 10 a.m., even though emergency calls about rising water began around 3 a.m.
The CodeRED system also has several drawbacks: it may not reach everyone because it relies on voluntary sign-ups, alerts can be inaudible if a device is muted, and spotty cellular service can also hinder its effectiveness. It’s unclear whether the IPAWS feature was triggered, and county officials did not answer questions about the reach of the alerts. The ultimate authority for sending an alert rests with the sheriff’s department, which did not respond to questions about why the alerts appeared to be inconsistent.
The DNA of Disaster Diagnosis
The Intelligent Design vs. Environment Mismatch
- The Design: Camp Mystic – a children’s summer camp with semi-permanent structures placed directly in a known flood plain along the Guadalupe River in “Flash Flood Alley.”
- The Environment: A river system with a history of catastrophic flooding (previous record from 1932), in an area so flood-prone it earned the nickname “Flash Flood Alley.”
- The Gap: The camp design completely failed to account for its environment. This wasn’t just poor planning – it was wilful blindness to a well-documented environmental reality.
Communication Failure
Like in the Titanic disaster, there was no single universal dedicated emergency channel that could alert everyone in the path of danger. The wireless systems at the time of the Titanic were not well developed, and other steamer radio operators within range of the Titanic turned off their equipment at night. The same mistake was repeated in Kerr County, Texas.
CodeRED and IPAWS: CodeRED is separate from the federal IPAWS system, and Kerr County officials did not use IPAWS to send out alerts during the critical early morning hours of the flash flood. This meant that the only alerts sent by local officials went through the opt-in CodeRED system, which excluded people who had not signed up for it. This is a central point of criticism in the aftermath of the event.
County officials – the local cognitive control – assumed they had a county-wide emergency alert system that could “notify the entire county…in a matter of minutes.”
What they actually had: CodeRED was an opt-in system that required people to voluntarily sign up – useless for the very population Mr. Thomas (Emergency Management Coordinator) identified as most vulnerable: “visitors, including those attending camps along the river.”
National Weather Service (NWS) warnings: The NWS did use the IPAWS system to issue multiple, escalating warnings. These warnings were sent directly to people’s phones through Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA), a component of IPAWS. They began as flash flood warnings and were upgraded to a “Flash Flood Emergency,” using stark language like “This is a PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS SITUATION. SEEK HIGHER GROUND NOW!” The NWS warnings were sent hours before the county’s first CodeRED alerts.
The difference here is the information contained within the alerts. In a typical flash flood situation, an authorised local official would use their IPAWS-compatible software to issue a WEA alert. This alert would go out to all mobile phones in the targeted area, warning of the life-threatening danger. The National Weather Service also uses IPAWS to send out flash flood warnings, but these often lack specific, actionable guidance like evacuation orders, which local officials are best equipped to provide. The failure to use this feature, or to use it in a timely manner, was a key point of concern in the aftermath of the Kerr County floods.
Alerts were hampered due to two key factors:
- Poor Mobile Phone Service: Cell service in the rural, western part of Kerr County, including the areas along the river, was “spotty at best.” IPAWS alerts, particularly the Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) that are sent to mobile phones, rely on a cellular connection. If a person’s phone had no signal, it would not have received the alert. This is a common and significant problem in rural and remote areas during disasters.
- Lack of Phones or Policies Against Them: Many of the victims were at summer camps, and it’s well-documented that many summer camps, particularly those for children, have strict policies against campers having mobile phones. Camp counsellors may also have rules limiting phone use whilst on duty. Therefore, even if a person had a phone and a signal, they may not have had it with them or even been allowed to use it. This is a critical point when considering the most vulnerable populations in this specific event—children and camp staff.
Identifying the Veto Nodes
We can identify at least three critical veto nodes where information flow broke down:
Veto Node #1: The Emergency Management Coordinator
The coordinator who was trained and authorised to send IPAWS alerts was off duty during the crisis due to illness. Despite being a member of the National Weather Service Slack channel where meteorologist Jason Runyen was posting increasingly dire warnings, the coordinator never responded or acknowledged the information. The flow of critical environmental data stopped at his cognitive control.
Veto Node #2: The Supervisor Approval Bottleneck
At 4:22 a.m., a firefighter on the ground radioed dispatchers requesting a CodeRED alert telling Hunt residents to “find higher ground.” The dispatcher’s response: “Stand by we need to get that – get that approved by our supervisor.” This bureaucratic veto node delayed action during the most critical minutes. This was equivalent to the last few moments the Titanic had to avoid the iceberg.
The supervisor approval bottleneck becomes even more damning when you realise:
- 4:22 a.m. – Firefighter requests CodeRED alert for Hunt residents
- 4:23 a.m. – Dispatcher says needs supervisor approval
- 10:00+ a.m. – First alerts actually go out to most residents
- By then – River had peaked at 37+ feet and the catastrophe was well underway
That’s nearly 6 hours of bureaucratic paralysis during a life-or-death emergency.
The Lethal Information Flow Breakdown
Here’s how information failed to reach cognitive control:
- 1:14 a.m. – NWS sends automated IPAWS alert
- 2:28 a.m. – Meteorologist Runyen posts on Slack that flooding has “likely begun”
- 3:02 a.m. – Runyen identifies Hunt area as the “bullseye”
- 4:03 a.m. – NWS sends “Flash Flood Emergency” – “SEEK HIGHER GROUND NOW!”
- 4:22 a.m. – Ground firefighter requests CodeRED alert
- 4:23 a.m. – Supervisor approval bottleneck delays action
- 5:31 a.m. – First county Facebook post acknowledging flooding
The cognitive control (aka- those in charge) at the campsite never received actionable information in time. By the time county officials posted on Facebook, the river had already peaked at 37.52 feet.
Veto Node #3: The Funding/Infrastructure Veto
For nearly a decade, Thomas (the Emergency Management Coordinator) had warned about inadequate flood warning systems. He proposed sirens and gauges like neighbouring counties used. But commissioners “balked at paying for the system outright” and FEMA rejected their grant application. Texas’s fiscal conservative culture created a veto node around spending money on disaster prevention.
Since 2009, Kerr County paid $25,000 annually for CodeRED – and therefore it was assumed they had “solved” their emergency communication problem. This likely prevented them from improving existing solutions because they were told they already had the problem solved.
Other confounding CodeRED factors:
- 18,451 people signed up by 2012, but many locals never enrolled
- Users may have become frustrated with too many alerts and tuned out
- Alerts were “inaudible if device is turned down or muted”
- Spotty cellular service in rural areas where camps were located
- Children at camps didn’t have phones anyway
The Ironic Twist
CodeRED could have used IPAWS (the free federal system) to alert all phones automatically. But county officials didn’t activate this feature – they stuck with the broken opt-in model that excluded the most vulnerable populations.
The NWS did their part, issuing urgent warnings directly to people’s phones through IPAWS. Their message was stark and clear: a “Flash Flood Emergency” was unfolding, and residents needed to “SEEK HIGHER GROUND NOW!”
The Overriding Factor: County Officials Did Not Activate IPAWS
Whilst the above factors are valid technical and logistical challenges, the most significant reason the alerts did not reach everyone is that Kerr County officials did not activate the IPAWS system for a local alert during the critical early hours of the flood.
Multiple news sources and official records show that the National Weather Service did issue alerts through IPAWS. However, these were generic “Flash Flood Emergency” warnings. Local officials have the authority to issue specific, actionable alerts—like “EVACUATE NOW”—through IPAWS, but they did not do so. They instead relied on the opt-in CodeRED system, which a large number of people had not signed up for. The decision not to use the more widespread and intrusive IPAWS system was a major point of contention and a key factor in the tragedy.
The result was a disaster that revealed a complete breakdown in communication. The disconnect between the broad, timely warnings from the National Weather Service and the delayed, narrow response from local officials left the community vulnerable. The floodwaters rose, and a community’s sense of security was washed away, raising serious questions about leadership, communication, and what happens when the right tools for a crisis are left unused. This is a story about a flood, but it is also a story about human decisions and the devastating consequences that can follow when a simple alert is not sent.
In an area literally nicknamed for floods, placing children in camps located in a known flood plain was like building dwellings on the slopes of an active volcano.
This blogpost is a work in progress. Please advise with any mistakes. Thank you.
-Devin Savage
References:
https://www.opb.org/article/2025/07/10/new-data-reveals-the-inadequacy-of-fema-flood-maps
